I'm probably not the first to notice this, but when you put a game on the waiting list with random start position (such as Fischer Random Chess or Knight Fight) the position is shown in the waiting game. Isn't this a clear advantage for the player who takes the challenge? Shouldn't the position be randomized after the challenge has been taken?

Dark Prince: http://brainking.com/en/OldFAQ?ht=24

In the waiting room, there is a red bullet between the color and time in some games but not others. What does the red bullet indicate?
Jared

Fencer: no its fine i just said i had never seen it do that before so wasnt sure what was going on

Fencer: Some achievement ideas
have 1000, 5000, etc started games and ALL in state of "Opponent's turn"
have 1000 etc games, all in state of "your move", under 1 day timeout, and less than 24 hours later move in all.

TheCrazyPuppy: The purpose of the system is to avoid cheating with vacation days, not to make absolutely correct calculations in all cases, especially when someone starts more than 3000 games, so it would be too CPU-consuming to recalculate time left values for all such games. Anyway, if you have a vacation day today, the timeout checker will detect it and add 24 hours to all affected games.

Pedro Martínez: there isnt really a problem
just never seen it happen before
plus today and tomorrow im using vacation days so its puzzling to say the least

TheCrazyPuppy: And what's the problem with that?

i just changed my weekend days to Mon Tues
and all of a sudden about 50 of my games are at - 1 day 23 hrs

i should add that isnt really a problem has i can easy move on them
im just wondering why it happened

Fencer:  Awesome!  It works now!

It's a shame people have to use a program to win a game

Fencer: Yes fixed now,thank you.

Carl: And now?

Fencer: I lost mine for a while also.
But then I remembered where I put it, so all is good.

Fencer: My notepad has disappeared too.

rednaz23: Try it now.

rednaz23: No problem with mine either. I'd say open a Bug Report.

rednaz23: sorry...mine is working just fine as well...

rednaz23: No problems with my notepad

rednaz23: I haven't used mine since 2007 but it is all there......no probs

Has anyone else had trouble with their notepad?  For some reason when I click on the notepad link it brings me to a completely white page.  This only happens on the notepad page and it has been like that for a couple of months...  any thoughts?

Thanks,

Phil (rednaz23)

Fencer:

Fencer: Well done! Thank you! Thank you!

Fencer: Well, at least until the next smart invention...
I'll watch my turtle. Thanks!

The vacation system has been fixed.
Or at least I hope so. Since the time left recalculations are queued in a separate thread (in order not to overload the server in case of too many changes of vacation days at once), there might be a short delay (a couple of seconds) before the game data reflect the change.

Anyway, it should not be possible to cheat with vacation days anymore.

rabbitoid: I never suggested it should be fixed in a hurry. I'm a programmer myself and know all about "simple things having big impacts" That's one of the reasons why I'm stressing the fact that this doesn't change much over the current implementation - less changes means less things that could go wrong.

Anyway, I was just replying to the thread that came up about people abusing the current system. I've suggested this approach a few times in the past and nothing has been done yet. But I'm patient, I can wait even more days, months or years
Personally I don't care much about people abusing the vacation system against me - I already have a few opponents that drag their games (and come to think of it, I'm dragging some of my own lately).

One thing I would not like Fencer to do is fix something in a hurry. No offence, Paulo, but I know from my programming experience that "simple" solutions tend to hide side effects which often prove worse than the thing they try to fix. Especially with delicate algorithms such as timeout calculation which are bound to have an effect on a large amount of the software.

This problem has been with us for a while and a couple of days or months, whatever it takes, won't make a difference.

AbigailII: Fischer clock settings means no vacation days on this site. So I'll assume it's not a Fischer clock game
The fact that you already spend your vacation day is not a problem - it's set on your account as a vacation day. Any other game that would otherwise timeout during that day will also get extended time when the moment arrives without wasting another vacation day, this is already how it works today.

nodnarbo: After a site's downtime no time checking functions are running on the site, if I understand correctly. That's why games go into negative time - there's no function running that will make them timeout in the background. However, if you allow games to go into negative times in normal conditions (while all these processes are executing) changes could indeed be profound.


Again, my main point was that NO CHANGES in the timeout or vacation days mechanisms need to be done. The only change would be the calculation of the deadline for timeout. Everything else would continue to work as currently. But, of course, only Fencer can say for sure if my reasoning is correct or not - he's the master of all time around here

pauloaguia: What if, instead of adding time to games the games just continue into negative time, but they aren't checked for time out if a vacation day is activated. This is also already implemented on the site with the case of site downtime, and wouldn't think it would take a huge coding change.

pauloaguia: Also, if it's not the player's turn, the time settings shouldn't be changed

Of course they should! Suppose you have 2 games running. In one it's my move, and you have 5 hours left (assume Fisher clock). The other times out at noon. Now, you want 24 hours on both your clocks, otherwise, I make a move at 1 PM, and you'll time out at 6 PM. Since you've already spend your vacation day this day, you would lose the game. That's why all clocks should get 24 hours in my scheme, not just the ones where it's your move.

AbigailII: I was just commenting on current site's implementation (as I think it is. I'm not really sure, for all I know it can be as you described already). I aggree that setting it for all the games is probably more efficient, my focus was on not having to implement anything different (but, like I said, for all I know it can already work as you described)

Why subtract 1 vacation day? I suppose you're thinking about autovacation, but pawns have no such feature, they need to set their vacation days manually (and so can paying members). I can't see why a vacation day should be subtracted if one is already set. Activating autovac and actually using vacation days are two different features right now (and will probably remain so)

EDIT: On second though, I don't aggree. The site should only add 24 hours to the games that would expire on the same day, not to all games. Otherwise, we'll get back to the same problem (a 30 days per move game has no need to geting extra 24 hours daily from almost 1 month in advance). Also, if it's not the player's turn, the time settings shouldn't be changed - otherwise I could have extra time added to my games because my opponent was on vacation, even if I'm out of vacation days already).

pauloaguia: That's not how I would do it. What I would do is: if one times out on a game, and the player has set that date for a vacation day, or has autovacation set (and still has vacation days set), I'd add 24 hours to the clock on every game the player has running, regardless whether it's his/her turn. Then subtract 1 from his number of vacation days for the year. You only need to do this at most once every 24 hours. After a player moves, check whether his clock is above the max. time that the game setting allows (this may happen after a player was on vacation while it wasn't his move) - and set the clock to the max if over.

The key point is that 24 hours only get added to the clock when the number of vacation days in decreased.

rabbitoid: The solution is very simple - the site shouldn't set the timeout of games according to vacation days like now but according to their original time settings (much simpler too).

So, if you have the next month set as vacation days and your opponent moves on a 3 days per move game, the deadline would still be set as in 3 days for now (instead of in 1 month as it is now). However, in 3 days from now, when the game was about to timeout, the system would notice that it was a day marked as vacation day and add another 24 hours (this is already working like this now, I think). And it would keep doing that until either a non-vacation day was reached (timeout) or you moved (business as usual).
Naturally, you shouldn't be able to mark the current day as a vacation day (which you can't already).

So, the site already has everything it needs to fight this problem. This would be one of those rare events where to solve it, all it takes is actually de-implementing something

The top level domain .de deserves an other translator, Damen und Herren.

This goes to show how many people read the bug board
Well, I don't either, so I wasn't aware of it.
It's not quite the same, though: what I described doesn't need an opponent moving at all. It's a system to have a perpetual vacation.
I Don't know what's the solution, since I don't know how Fencer implemented the vacation / timeout system.

rabbitoid: It's been reported some time ago.
http://brainking.com/en/ReadBug?bgi=1293

rabbitoid: Actually, bk.com domain belongs to Burger King.

gogul: And me, I'd love to see a brainking.burger, but I don't think it's going to happen

gogul: Top level domain?

How is this part of an URL called, like .com, .org, .cs etc.? Well, howsoever, I'd love to see .kong. Brainking.kong

Bernice: I will keep you all updated....


Take your time...

alilsassy: It fills the void, for a little while. That's why a serial harasser needs constant top ups.

But as you said.. just walk away and ignore them, thus returning the 'gift' to them.

SL-Mark: To some respect you are correct, to some you are not. Abuse is a cycle, passed down from abuser to abused, which unfortunately leaves scars. If you are the 1 in 8.. well..... but for those who are not, especially as adults.. it does become the abused persons problem, as they now have to sort out the scars or live with them for the rest of their lives. There is no guilt on the abused.. although some feel like it.

Anyway, this is a complex... realistically individual matter to each abused person. So.. no more.

rod03801: I will keep you all updated....

Well this is all well and good, but there are systems here at Brainking that should keep Bernice from having to even see it. There has to be a way to get it to work correctly. From experience, I know that it can work correctly. I think if she follows a combination of coan.net's and czuch's advice it might work properly.

Bernice:
You should never tolerate harassment or other users making you feel uncomfortable.
Verbal Abusers & Stalkers get a major thrill from making you angry. It is a cycle that repeats over and over again.
Abusing or Stalking is a matter of one person trying to control another. Controlling you brings them pleasure. If they can force you to react this gives them even greater pleasure. If you scream, rant and rave they win. If you panic. They win. If you make empty threats to them, they win. If you argue with a stalker, they win. If you run around telling all your friends and the stalker hears about it, the stalker wins.
So the simplest way to stop a stalker (in the early stages) is DON'T REACT. Make them get bored and move on.
I know it's frustrating, but alanback is right. Try to ignore him & he'll go away. Good luck

alanback: I do believe I understand what you mean, and to an extent would agree with you.
Excuse my extreme example below, as perhaps this was unfair.
Briefly, as this potentially interesting debate is best done off this board, the self conditioning that you imply, surely results in the de-sensitising of emotions and reactions. The very things that surely make us human and not machine.

SL-Mark:Perhaps you misunderstand me.  No doubt a child abuser has a problem.  However, the shock and disgust to which you refer are entirely within the control of the viewer.  They serve no purpose other than to disturb the viewer's equanimity.

alanback: That is seriously flawed logic.
It is like saying that the emotions of shock and disgust most humans would experience when confronted with something despicable, e.g. child abuse, is our problem and not the abusers problem.

Furthermore, in an example of an advertised television programme which might cause offense, we can choose not to watch it. Bernice has no choice, but is rightly taking responsibility and control so that she may have a choice.

Bernice:Because the real problem is not the "crap", but your reaction to it.  If you can control your reaction, you don't have to worry about controlling events outside yourself.  The easiest way to avoid being bothered by other people's behavior is to realize that it's not about you, but about them.